Personal communications as described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,313,035 issued to Jordan et al. on Jan. 26, 1982, contemplates routing of a telephone call placed to a personal telephone number assigned to a subscriber to any of several locations where the subscriber is likely to be at the time the call is made. This can be done by querying a database that contains information that indicates where (i.e., at what telephone number) the subscriber intends to be. The profile can be updated in accordance with a fixed schedule or rule, such that calls are sent to different destinations based on the time of day. The problem with this is that the subscriber may not always maintain the intended schedule. Alternatively, a profile can be maintained by the subscriber having the personal telephone number, and the profile can be updated as required, by calls made to the database. However, this requires specific action by the subscriber, and the subscriber may forget to update the profile.
One solution was presented in U.S. Pat. No. 5,243,645 issued to Bissell et al. on Sep. 7, 1993, in which the profile is updated automatically, based upon transactions, such as credit card purchases, made by the subscriber. This solution does not require explicit action by the subscriber, but nevertheless requires transmission of updating information to the database on a periodic basis, before a call is ever made to the subscriber. Various call forwarding schemes exist which let a subscriber program station equipment with a schedule of destinations where the subscriber may be reached. Such station equipment, and the procedure used to program the equipment, are often unduly complicated and hard to understand.